I finally managed to get back to Abbot Kinney and insert myself into the traffic lane long enough to get a photo of that odd sharrow I mentioned last week. It’s one thing to direct us into the door zone, but sending us directly into the parked cars seems a little extreme.

Go ahead and follow it. I dare you.

Even from further away, it still points the same way. When you paint on a curve, a slight change in angle makes a big difference.

You said of London’s cycle hire scheme “two cyclists say the city may not be the safest place to ride” which is misleading. The accident the cyclist had in the linked article was because he put off fixing his brakes.

London is not an unsafe place to ride. There are about 15 deaths a year out of 180 million bicycle journeys (about half a million journeys a day). That makes it about 23,000 years of commuting every day, 220 days a year on average before a fatal accident, 600 years for a serious injury (which in British definitions includes a lot of not-serious injuries like cuts and grazes) and 250 years for a minor injury. I think there are far worse things to worry about in life.

Tony, I’m just linking to the article and trying to sum up what it’s about in a few words; the writer’s perspective was that riding in London was risky, not mine. People have written that L.A. is a dangerous place to ride, and I would certainly disagree with that.

Never haven’t ridden in London, I can’t speak to it one way or another. However, when I visited there a few years ago, I certainly wished I had my bike with me because it seemed to be a lovely place to ride. If the bike share program had been in place at the time, I probably would have given it a shot.

I suppose a car driver will have to go there next, and take a picture showing how the double yellow line directs motorists into parked cars as well…the road curves; I think even the most imbecilic or drug-addled Venice cyclist will figure it out.

After all, had it been placed twenty feet farther back, it would be directing cyclists across the double yellow and into opposing traffic. I am sure we would all blindly follow its pointy little head into oblivion, right?

Perhaps we should stage a protest ride demanding curved sharrow stencils (both left and right, perhaps of different radii!) for such obviously murderous situations….

OK, I’m a vehicular cyclist and so prejudiced; I think the only real values of sharrows are not to “guide” cyclists but rather to inform motorists of cyclists’ longstanding statutory right to the road, and to encourage riders to stay out of the door zone. (The reason for the much-derided 11-feet from the curb rule is simply to indicate a safe spot outside the door zone in the vicinity of the sharrow. Some LA cyclists demand measuring from the centerline, which would result in door-zone placement on many streets.)

Funny how we have no qualms about rolling stop signs, at which cyclists as well as motorists are presently required to come to a complete stop (BTW I do it too of course); but we act as though sharrows are wheel channels guiding us helplessly along the road. They are however just advisories that we are free to ignore.

I think what’s really at issue is that the cycling community in LA has become so habituated to complaining that it’s become a reflex action.

As Voltaire said, “The perfect is the enemy of the good.” The pictured sharrow is out of the door zone for that part of the street, and reminds motorists that we will be there. It does its job.

Rick, the photo wasn’t edited; I took several from various distances, all of which clearly show the sharrow pointing off to the side of the road (I’ve added one at the top to show it from a longer angle). This was just the best photo by an admittedly bad photographer. I certainly don’t think anyone wold be foolish enough to follow it there.

I didn’t include this picture as a complaint because I thought this was wrong, or that it somehow invalidated all the other correctly angled sharrows on the street. I included it because that sharrow is oddly placed and therefore amusing. If I’d been painting the street, I would have placed it just past the curve in the road, or at least angled it a little differently so it pointed more a little more down the road.

I am not one of those who think the sharrow installation has been hopelessly flawed; I like the sharrows, especially the ones on Abbot Kinney. However, I do think there is a learning curve involved for the city, and that improvements can and should be made in future installations. As I’ve written previously, this is experiment from the city’s perspective, and it will be interesting to see what they learn from it.

Sorry if my attempt to poke a little fun at one quirky sharrow came across as criticism of the whole program — that certainly wasn’t what I intended.

Thanks for keeping an eye on Sharrows installations. It’s exactly these kinds of specific, detailed observations that will help us create the best recommendations and guidelines possible at the end of the pilot project.